Review: Don’t walk out on David Cronenberg’s bizarre and insightful ‘Crimes of the Future’
Don’t be like a Cannes Film Festival goer who just can’t handle the freaky imagery: Sit your posterior down for a showing of director David Cronenberg’s new body horror film “Crimes of the Future” and stay there for all the insightful and artistic craziness that unfolds. (Some squirming is not only allowed but pretty much expected.)
And Cronenberg, the guy responsible for “The Fly” and “Videodrome,” thankfully doesn’t skimp on the weird. “Crimes of the Future” (★★★ out of four; rated R; in theaters Friday) is a sci-fi drama with noir elements and a definite taste for the bizarre, imagining an evolutionary measure where humans produce new organs in their body. It’s an intriguing premise to match its cast, including Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, recent Oscar nominee Kristen Stewart and, in his most enjoyably unusual role ever, “Felicity” alum Scott Speedman.
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Saul Tenser (Mortensen) is one of those with a condition called Accelerated Evolution Syndrome, where organic objects inexplicably grow in his body. But in Tenser, they don’t last long: He has become a celebrity for his avant-garde art performances, which entail his partner/caregiver/surgeon Caprice (Seydoux) removing those organs during sold-out shows.
This odd ritual is a source of pleasure: “Surgery is the new sex,” declares Timlin (Stewart), a by-the-book bureaucrat working for the National Organ Registry (which keeps track of people’s spiffy new organs) who takes a kinky, obsessive interest in Saul and Caprice’s “work.” But there’s also a lot of pain in Saul’s life, as simple things like eating and sleeping seem excruciating.
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Cronenberg’s longtime production designer Spier creates a landscape that is futuristically dystopian but also quite alien, down to the furniture. Saul sleeps (or at least tries to) in a living bed with tendrils implanted in him to soothe his pain. There’s also a breakfast chair that looks like it was made from a skeleton, constantly shifting around to best help Saul consume his food, and a sarcophagus-like capsule people get in so somebody can play a real-life game of “Operation” on their insides.
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Unlike the recent film “Men,” which offers striking imagery and insane body horror sequences but lacks a narrative that brings it together in a way that makes sense, “Crimes of the Future” wears its metaphors mainly on its sleeve. Cronenberg has crafted a story that brings together what we do to our bodies to feel and look good – though that’s sometimes in the eye of the beholder – and the synthetic materials that play a key role in both our modern lives and environmental crises.
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